Board to vote on the mantra requirement

[Sandro Santilli]

I've stumbled upon the minutes from the board meeting of March 31, 2026
and found what looks like an ill-defined motion to:

  - Drop the "mantra" requirement to become an OSGeo User

  - Allow anyone with a passport from major corporations (Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft) to automatically become an "OSGeo User"

The motion goal seems to be aimed at simplifyinng the onboarding experience,
but seems to be missing the point of the "mantra" as an intentional barrier
we setup to protect ourselves from spammers.

In this era of raising barriers against AI agents finding a contrary motion to
instead open up our shared house to strangers seems unexpected so I'm voicing
my concern about it.


On the technical side, I'd be very favorable in deploying Keycloack as
a Single Sign On solution, to allow services provided by OSGeo and by
others to accept the "OSGeo Passport" in addition to other passports
they may choose to support, but I think there's still a value in the effort
it takes to obtain such "OSGeo Passport" and that removing that barrier would
reduce such value.

I hope the board members will make an effort to understand the topic more deeply
in order to be able to take an informed decision, and I'm surprised SAC list was
not involved in the conversation.

--strk;

  Libre GIS consultant/developer 🎺
  https://strk.kbt.io/services.html
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